The soup is good. Better than good. She made this for me. The thought settles somewhere in my chest and refuses to leave.
I take another spoonful. Watch her from the corner of my eye.
She's sitting with her back straight. Hands folded in her lap. Like she's waiting for a job interview.
"Do you want to talk?" I ask.
Her eyes snap to mine. "About what?"
"About how these two years have been for you."
The words hang in the air. I watch her face change. Watch the walls go up.
She laughs. It's not a happy sound.
"Apparently you already know whatever the hell I've done these years." Her voice is sharp. Bitter. "You have my phone number. My address. Probably my work schedule and my grocery list too."
I nod. There's no point in denying it.
"Why?" she asks.
The question cuts through me.
Why.
Because I couldn't stop. Because every time I told myself to delete the alerts, to stop checking, to let her go, I found myself opening the app again. Because knowing she was alive was the only thing that made breathing bearable some days.
Because I'm in love with her and I have been since the moment she slapped me across the face two years ago.
I can't say any of that.
She doesn't deserve me. Doesn't deserve my obsession, my watching, my inability to let go. She deserves a normal man with a normal job who doesn't track her location like a stalker and show up bleeding on her doorstep.
I choose part of the truth.
"I felt guilty," I say. "About what happened to you."
Her eyebrows rise. "Guilty."
"You got shot because of us. Because of the family. Because I didn't get to you fast enough." I set the spoon down. Look at her directly. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
She stares at me for a long moment.
I can see her processing. Weighing my words against what she knows about me. Deciding whether to believe me or not.
Finally, she looks away.
"What's going on with the Sartori family?" she asks.
The subject change is abrupt. She doesn't want to talk about herself anymore. Doesn't want to examine why I've been watching her or what it means.
I let her redirect.
"A lot has changed since you left," I say.
She shifts in the chair. Pulls her legs up. Tucks them beneath her until she's sitting cross-legged on the seat.
She looks comfortable now. Settled. Like she's preparing to hear a story.
